The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2015 9 Honoring Local Staff I found the President’s Views column in the December FSJ (“The Departed”) a timely and moving reminder of friends and colleagues killed 10 years ago during a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. On Dec. 6, 2004, I huddled with my colleagues beneath the visa counter at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah as a siren screamed overhead, and five terror- ists planted bombs and sprayed gunfire across our compound. The day may come when I’m ready to reflect more fully on those events, but today I want only to recall my dearest friends who lost their lives there (not to mention the many who survive with scars, both physical and emotional): Imad, who several times took me in hand on his own time to guide me through the complicated process of buying a truck in Saudi Arabia. Basheer, who smiled from the day he started working with us in general services, his generous gift of a vase still prominently displayed in my family home. Romeo, who kept my international line work- ing so I could call home and talk to the woman who would later become my wife. Ali bin Taleb, noble driver. And smiling Jaufar Sadik, the Sri Lankan local guard force member. In a letter to Com- mentary magazine, a former U.S. consul gen- eral in Jeddah wrote of Sadik’s heroism: “With- out protective cover, Sadik bravely returned fire on three terrorists who entered the con- sulate compound. It was he … who killed the terrorist leader and prevented further carnage. Moments later, Sadik himself was killed by a fourth terrorist, who came from behind and shot him fatally in the head.” Peace be upon them all. I know that many of my colleagues saw Mr. Silverman’s column and remem- bered their own terrible moments under siege as they served the United States. In reflecting on the events in Jeddah, I applaud AFSA’s efforts to work with Congress to pass the Mustafa Akarsu Local Guard Force Support Act, which will provide special immigrant visas to the surviving spouses and children of U.S. government employees killed abroad in the line of duty. It will be a positive step toward recognizing the dedication and service of those who work side by side with our diplomats overseas, every day, everywhere they serve. Ben East FSO Washington, D.C. Teaching Diplomacy The series on teaching diplomacy in the January-February FSJ touches on interaction between academics and practitioners with regard to teaching, but such interaction also offers important contributions to research. The volume co-edited by Abe Lowenthal, Scholars, Policymakers and International Affairs , reviewed in the same issue of the Journal , makes that point through case studies. After retiring from the Foreign Service following service as deputy chief of mission in Mos- cow, I went to Brown University to establish a research center with the charge to bring together scholars and practitioners to search for policy ideas that could reduce the risk of nuclear war. That may seem quaint, but it was the 1980s. One thing I learned was that such interaction can be a two-way street: scholars gain by testing theory against practice, and practitioners gain by seeing the advantage of applying a rigorous framework for testing possible policy solutions to complex problems. Although neither side readily acknowledged the advantages, they were real—or seemed so to me. Mark Garrison FSO, retired Cranston, R.I. Tempered Appreciation My appreciation for the FSJ ’s January- February issue on diplomatic training and the practitioner-academic paradigm is tempered by a sense that some issues that need deeper examination were over- looked. I have three observations. First, how can the two principal streams in the diplomacy arena, practitio- ners and scholarly theorists, work better with one another? An elegant monograph written in 1979, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences by Alexander George and Andrew Bennett (MIT Press, 2005), remains relevant. Foreign ministry officials need contex- tual information, how today’s situation has similarities with what may have happened in the past, and the available policy options. Scholars need informa- tion from real-life situations; they lack a practitioner’s felicity in tapping data via interviews or questionnaires. Prof. G.R. Berridge has shown that exhaustive examination of archives can produce insightful analysis, evident in his book British Diplomacy in Turkey, 1583 to the Present: A Study in the Evolution of the Resident Embassy (2009). His writing also shows how trawling through oral his- tory records can yield insights that help to ground theory with practical experience. LETTERS